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Workshop Upload tool issues

Yoshiro

Senior Community Manager
Staff member
  • Oct 10, 2005
    14,495
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    Please document with as much detail any issues and crashes you have with the upload tool here so we can investigate them and work on fixes.

    Useful info may include:

    Windows version and language
    Steam install directory
    KF 2 install directory
    Location of map file
    Brewed or unbrewed upload
     
    Workshop upload command line:

    For those having issues can you also try running the workshop upload via command line. Instructions are as follows:

    While there is a GUI tool to build scripts, brew data, and upload mods and maps to the Killing Floor 2 Steam workshop, the command-line tool that it invokes to upload to workshop can be invoked directly. This makes it possible to automate updating with a batch file or other script.

    This guide applies to the Community Workshop for maps and mods, not the Curated Workshop where art assets and other items can be uploaded for consideration for inclusion in the game.

    The newest version of the Steam Workshop uses directory trees as items, not single files. Workshop items do not need to be zipped or archived into single files any more, but they do need to be arranged correctly in a directory tree.

    The name of the command line uploader is WorkshopUserTool.exe. It takes a single parameter: the name of a configuration file that is used to define the upload. It is installed as part of the Killing Floor 2 - SDK tool in Steam to the ...\SteamApps\common\killingfloor2\Binaries directory (the game and editor executables are in Win64 subdirectory of that path). It uses the base Killing Floor 2 user directory as its working directory (something like "C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Games\KillingFloor2", depending on your version of windows). Wherever WorkshopUserTool.exe is on disk, it will only look in that directory for the configuration file it uses to define the upload. Here is an example of its format:

    $Description "Another test of workshop."
    $Title "Workshop Test"
    $PreviewFile "C:\Users\NameHere\Pictures\WorkshopTest.png"
    $Tags ""
    $MicroTxItem "false"
    $PackageDirectory "C:\Users\NameHere\Documents\My Games\KillingFloor2\TestMapUpload"

    Those lines must be in that exact order in the file. The quotes are also necessary. The Description and Title lines are the title and description the item will be listed under on Steam Workshop. The PreviewFile is the picture that will be displayed for the item. The full path to the file must be given. The Tags line is a space-separated list of tags to associate with the item in the Workshop. MicroTxItem needs to be "false" to indicate this is not for the curated workshop. The PackageDirectory setting is the directory to be uploaded as the Workshop item. It's best to keep this as a subdirectory of ...My Games\KillingFloor2, since that's where the files will be coming from.

    The contents of PackageDirectory will be installed to the user's KillingFloor2\KFGame\Published directory, and the content directory under it is BrewedPC, so usually the PackageDirectory will contain the directory BrewedPC with other directories like Maps, Packages, etc. Note that a limitation of Unreal Engine 3 is that all packages and maps must have distinct names even if they are in separate directories, so keep that in mind.

    An example directory tree that was used to upload the Workshop Test map was:

    TestMapUpload
    • BrewedPC
      • KF-WorkshopTest.kfm
      • Packages
        • ENV_WorkshopTest
          • ENV_WorkshopTest_MAT.upk
          • ENV_WorkshopTest_TEX.upk



    The workshop uploader tool is run with the name of the configuration file on the command line. The configuration file above was named wsinfo_testmap.txt, so the workshop test map was uploaded by running:

    WorshopUserTool wsinfo_testmap.txt


    Updates and troubleshooting steps

    The following versions have been released into the Upload Tool Beta branch.
    • Upload Tool v2 - Fixed some permissions issues that was causing the tool not to be able to access a needed folder structure if it already existed causing the program to crash
    • Upload Tool v3 - Fixed a case where non unicode characters in the users Windows path or Steam name may have caused issues causing the upload to fail

    We are aware of two possible issues at this time that can hamper an upload. Please try the following if you are still having troubles:
    • Try uploading your item without an image attached (you should be able to add an image later in Steam)
    • Make sure Steam/The Upload Tool are launched with administrator rights

    ERROR CODES:
    If your upload fails in the current beta branch the log it should give you an error code. If you can provide us with those error codes it would be very helpful!
     
    Upvote 0
    The GUI crashes out every time I attempt an upload. As to the command line tool, what should we name the config file?

    Config file can be named anything. It is what you call in the batch to run the tool.

    If you call it
    Paultron.txt

    you would use the batch file:
    WorshopUserTool Paultron.txt

    to make the tool work.
     
    Upvote 0
    The command line tool worked for me. What I did,
    - moved my R:\preview.png to C:\Users\Dmitriy\Pictures\preview.png
    - created C:\Users\Dmitriy\Documents\my games\KillingFloor2\icearena.txt with contents

    $Description "Simple arena map"
    $Title "KF-IceArena"
    $PreviewFile "C:\Users\Dmitriy\Pictures\preview.png"
    $Tags "Maps"
    $MicroTxItem "false"
    $PackageDirectory "C:\Users\Dmitriy\Documents\my games\KillingFloor2\IceArena"

    - created folder C:\Users\Dmitriy\Documents\my games\KillingFloor2\IceArena
    - copied my cooked map into this folder, KF-IceArena.kfm
    - run cmd.exe and execute WorkshopUserTool.exe icearena.txt
     
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    Another question we find ourselves needed to ask. Have those who are having problems with the upload tool uploaded items to the curated workshop in the past?

    We think we've found a lead on the cause of this issue.

    I tested and failed upload on 3 PC.

    On my main PC where I made the map, SDK and Tool won't launch since Workshop patch. It crashes my steam and I find myself unable to close the SDKFrontend.exe (unexpected error). Opening directly the WorkshopTool.exe enters an infinite loading loop.

    On my Laptop, where I once opened my map in the SDK. I can open the WorkshopTool, brew the map, but it crashes at the upload step.

    On a friend Laptop, where he connected with my steam account, but never opened the SDK. WorkshopTool opens, can brew the map, but crashes at upload.


    I have never used the currated Workshop, I only once uploaded something on the Tabletop Simulator Workshop.
     
    Upvote 0
    Another question we find ourselves needed to ask. Have those who are having problems with the upload tool uploaded items to the curated workshop in the past?

    We think we've found a lead on the cause of this issue.

    Yup, uploaded an item to the curator workshop for the polycount contest and the upload tool is giving me an onShareFile error and only putting blank items on my workshop when I try to upload a map.
     
    Upvote 0
    I am attempting to update my map that I need to put a hotfix update on and it is not showing up through the existing workshop selection with the upload tool.

    UPDATE: I did not create a profile for the map and just did the default. Testing to see if creating a profile and trying to update it will show up or note.


    UPDATE 2: After creating an profile and uploading to the workshop the existing workshop section still did not work.
     
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    Another question we find ourselves needed to ask. Have those who are having problems with the upload tool uploaded items to the curated workshop in the past?

    We think we've found a lead on the cause of this issue.

    I didn't upload anything to kf2 workhop before. And the upload tool just crashes when I try to upload a map currently. I've uploaded the map using command line tool..
     
    Upvote 0
    For those having issues are you attempting to upload an image, and if yes, what file type and image size?

    I finally uploaded my map with the betaupload tool. Here's a report.

    Main PC: Win 8.1. The Frontend.exe crashes my steam everytime I open the uploadtool via steam. This same .exe is refusing to close in process window, and won't close even if I close and re-open my session (unallowing me to play steam online since the app never closes).
    I once opened it directly with compatibility XP SP3 and Administrator check. It was always crashing at the start of upload.
    The betaupload is not working whatever I try now, same for normal tool too.

    Laptop: Win 8.1. WorkshopTool always opened but was crashing on start of Upload. The line command was giving me an error that I showed in the line command thread.
    The betaupload tool allowed me to upload the map, but only if I had an administrator check at launch (or else I would get an error from Steam servers, not crashing the WSTool). Might not be important but once the upload process started, it took some minutes for my connection to actually show the files uploading.


    The image I uploaded is a non compressed JPG of 512x512.
     
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